Eleven more security law arrests and confirmation of the first security law blocking of a website

A message that can be seen in various parts of Hong Kong

 

Those days when Hong Kong was a safe haven are, alas, now gone :(

 

I woke up this morning to learn that 11 more Hong Kongers have been arrrested under the national security law that China has imposed on Hong Kong.  On top of the 87 arrested previously, this brings the number of people arrested under this draconian law to 98 -- and it does seem telling that, to date, only four of those individuals have actually been charged (with, among others, all 55 people arrested last week for their involvement with the democratic primaries that took place last July not being formally charged (as yet) for the security law infringements they had been accused of).

 

It wasn't until several hours later that the Hong Kong police confirmed that all of the 11 people arrested under the security law today had been detained on suspicion of assisting the 12 Hong Kongers who had fled the city to seek asylum in Taiwan, only to end up spending time in captivity in Shenzhen after being detained by the Guangdong coastguard when their boat was intercepted in Mainland Chinese waters.  And even now, details haven't been forthcoming about the identities of the arrestees beyond one of them being Daniel Wong Kwok-tung, a district council who also is a human rights lawyer and founder of a pro-democracy restaurant in Taiwan, and another being the mother of student activist turned documentary filmmaker Willis Ho.       

 

At the time of my writing this blog post, I have not heard if any of them have been released on bail or formally charged yet.  I do hope that their cases will get sufficient coverage in the media to ensure that they will not just disappear into the system.  But, with so much happening these days, alas, attention can end up going elsewhere, including to the two members of the Hong Kong 12 who were not tried in Mainland China (and subsequently given jail sentences of up to three years) because they were minors and, instead, sent back to Hong Kong: one of whom, 17-year-old Hoang Lam-phuc, appeared in court yesterday on another, extradition bill protest-related charge; the other of whom, 18-year-old Liu Tsz-man, appeared in court today on a separate, similarly extradition bill protest-related charge and was also remanded into custody.  

 

Also appearing in court today was investigative journalist Bao Choy, whose shock arrest back in November for, essentially, doing her job was seen as a further blow to press freedom in the territory.  It was gratifying to read -- in a Radio Televion Hong Kong (RTHK) article, no less -- that  members of the RTHK Programme Staff Union staged a demonstration outside the court before her hearing to support her.  But it was disappointing, to say the least, to learn that RTHK took the decision to suspend her from production of Hong Kong Connection, the program she has been working on for some time now.  

Following up on another matter: Confirmation has now been received that internet censorship has indeed come to Hong Kong.  More specifically, internet service provider HK Broadband stated today that it has blocked access to Hong Kong Chronicles, a website that publishes material mainly on 2019 anti-government protests, to comply with the national security law.  Other local internet service providers, such as PCCW and China Mobile, have not come out and stated that they have acted similarly but there's little doubt that they too have been involved in what is the first censorship of a website by the Hong Kong authorities under this sweeping law being used to silence dissent.

 

To be sure, there are individuals even within the "yellow" camp who don't approve of the doxxing of police officers done on the Hong Kong Chroncicles website  But the point, as we know, isn't that doxxing per se is something that the powers that be here are intent on stamping out.  For, if so, they'd also block those "blue" websites that publish the personal information of "yellow" individuals but, unsurprisingly, have not done so.     

 

When looking at the big picture, it could be argued that the decision on the part of the authorities to block access to a website has greater repercussions for Hong Kong than the actual existence of the website.  On a practical level, the actions taken to block the website has resulted in the blocking of access to other websites whose only "crime" is to share the same ISP address as Hong Kong Chronicles.  But what's really worrisome is what else on the internet the security law will be used to block: with Wong Ho-wa, an Election Committee member who represents the information technology industry, outlining that such actions are a threat to Hong Kongers' freedom of information.

 

In the RTHK article about this, it additionally was noted that Wong "expressed concern that without a clear definition of what exactly is allowed online, even news websites could be blocked in the future over alleged national security violations.  "The official government still has no clear clarification or justification on their action or their rationale behind. Would the internet press be also be affected in the longer term? That we don't know," he said."  In other words: watch this cyberspace -- in the case of many Hong Kong netizens, very anxiously.